


With My Soul Beside Me

by PanBoleyn



Series: Pan's Daemon AUs [4]
Category: 16th Century CE RPF, The Tudors (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Daemons, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-08-16 20:50:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16502477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PanBoleyn/pseuds/PanBoleyn
Summary: A tale of a King and his second Queen, and of their beloved Duke and Duchess - and of their daemons, their precious outer souls who understood what lay between them long before they did.Also - a tale of those around them, children and siblings and friends alike, and life in a very different Tudor Court.





	1. Chapter 1

Ykenai has been settled for several years by the time Thomas Cromwell finds out exactly what her shape is. A falcon, he knows that much, but Putney wasn’t exactly a place to learn the precise names of falcon breeds, and even his early schooling is more focused on practical matters. 

  
  


He is in Italy when Ykenai, soaring high, catches the attention of their commander. Cesare Borgia is the wonder and the terror of his time, and his daemon too is a bird of prey, a fierce eagle whose shrieking war call is the perfect counterpoint to her human’s sharp smile. “Ah, the Englishman,” Cesare says, almost lazy - except Cesare Borgia is never that, Thomas knows this much already. “You will serve a king one day, Englishman.” 

  
  


“My lord?” Thomas asks, puzzled. 

  
  


“Your daemon. She is a gyrfalcon. Only kings hunt with gyrfalcons. Not princes, not dukes, not emperors. Only  _ kings _ . Perhaps your own Tudor will take you, hmm? Or…” 

  
  


Or Cesare Borgia will be King of Italy.

  
  


Either way, Thomas thinks, it’s true that he will serve a king. A gyrfalcon hunts from the hand of a king, what does that mean for him and Ykenai? He doesn’t know, but he looks forward to the day he finds out. 

  
  


In the end, Cesare Borgia’s empire falls apart in the wake of his father’s death. Thomas and Ykenai are not among those who go with their former commander when he leaves - for his lands in France, perhaps, or some say to take up arms in Navarre. Thomas doesn’t know, and it is no longer his concern. He lingers in Florence for a time, and while intending to go home to England finds himself in Antwerp for a while, then in Ghent. 

  
  


Returning to England, hearing the voices of his countrymen is strange to his ears now. He speaks English with a bit of an accent now, and he wonders if it will ever fade. He takes up professions, he takes a wife, and one day, he catches the eye of Cardinal Wolsey and his magpie daemon. 

  
  


To serve a cardinal is not the same as a king, but when that cardinal is all but a second king in the realm, it is close enough, is it not? 

  
  


So Thomas tells himself. But the day that Wolsey ousts Richard Pace as Secretary, he begins to wonder. He’s fairly certain the man isn’t really a traitor, that if anyone is selling secrets to the French, it is Wolsey himself, who will do anything to scotch an alliance with the Queen’s nephew. 

  
  


Cromwell thinks this is unwise, but for now at least, it is not his place to say. Especially lately, the only attention he can afford is that of approval. If Wolsey knew, for example, of the meetings he attends in secret… 

  
  


And then, Wolsey tells him that he is to replace Richard Pace. Him, the drunken blacksmith’s son from Putney, to serve in such close proximity to the King of England. It hardly matters that when he is first introduced to His Majesty, all he receives is a glance and a cursory greeting. King Henry’s daemon, a leopard, is restless today, yet she pauses for a long moment to consider them.

  
  


_ “Only kings hunt with gyrfalcons. Not princes, not dukes, not emperors. Only  _ **_kings_ ** _.” _

  
  


But what, Thomas asks himself - and perhaps he also asks Il Valentino’s ghost - will this King wish to hunt? 

  
  


<><><>

  
  


Henry’s daemon settles the night before his father dies. He’s late for it, of course, seventeen years old - but how can Delwyn have settled when he has been kept a child, not allowed to be himself? Henry knows that his father’s paranoia is understandable. After all, look what happened to Arthur, and before he took ill, Henry’s older brother was a sturdy, healthy young man. He never had Henry’s vitality, it’s true, he was more a Tudor and a Beaufort, whereas Henry and their sisters show their York and Woodville blood, their mother always said.

  
  


(Mother. He still cannot bear to think for long of Mother and her lynx, even now.)

  
  


Still, while Henry may  _ understand  _ his father’s fears, he cannot help but resent them. Perhaps if his father had not kept him so close, he would not be so frightened now. 

  
  


“Maybe,” his daemon murmurs, laying her heavy head on his lap. They are out in the gardens of Richmond Palace, the whole space bathed in the reddish light of sunset; no one notices now, all attention on the bedchamber where Father coughs himself to death, Rhonwen a trembling ball of gold-dusted fur beside him. Henry’s own Delwyn is a lioness right now, the biggest shape she takes, and he knows she’s taken it to comfort him. 

  
  


“Maybe what?” 

  
  


“Maybe we would be less frightened, Hal, and maybe not. After all, it is a great responsibility to wear a crown. Perhaps we should be afraid, so that we will respect it properly. But we are meant for it, and we will do well. We must.” 

  
  


Henry closes his eyes, letting the wind brush his face. It feels, suddenly, almost like a benediction, a promise. They are meant for this, they must be, or God would not have taken the drastic step of claiming Arthur for His own, thus making an heir of Henry. So they are young, and know little. They will learn. Already they have Brandon and his Synneia, one friend who they know is trustworthy. The others of the circle of bright, competitive youths… Henry  _ is  _ fond of them all, but he trusts only Brandon.

  
  


Still, Brandon cannot be the only loyal man in England. Henry will find the others, he swears that to himself. He will find those who can tell him what he does not yet know, and then he will use that knowledge to be the very best of kings. 

  
  


Just then, Delwyn trembles, and Henry looks down in alarm. “Del, what is it?” 

  
  


“I… I think…” And then, before his eyes, her fur ripples, the form of her body changes. Not so very much, for she is still a giant cat, but her fur is spotted now, her eyes green where in her lioness’ face they had been gold. She is a leopard, and somehow, they both know that she will never change again. 

  
  


To share a daemon with Edward I! What a sign of good fortune!

  
  


<><><>

  
  


Anne’s daemon settles on the journey to Mechelen. The day she and Mrs. Orchard set sail, her Nerian sits on her shoulder in the form of a sparrow, the better to fit comfortably as they board. But later that very same day, he takes dolphin form, swimming joyfully next to the ship as Anne presses a hand to her heart, caught between feeling his joy in such graceful movement and the ache of the distance between them. 

  
  


On a leap out of the water, he becomes a seagull, then soars high as he dares before coming down, landing as a cat in her waiting arms. 

  
  


He is a bird often, as they travel through Bruges, both of them staring around them in fascination. He’s a falcon, mostly, as they continue on, sharp-eyed and their family’s symbol, a piece of home and an adventurer all at once as he goes as high as they can bear. He looks ahead, then flies back to Anne’s shoulder to whisper of what he’d seen. 

  
  


When he’s not flying, he curls in the daemon cup on her saddle as a fox, red fur bright against the leather. And one day as they’re leaving Ghent, he stays there, as they see the towers of Mechelen coming up out of the morning mist. He sits upright to look but he does not fly. 

  
  


“Nerian, why don’t you fly in closer?” Anne asks him, voice soft. 

  
  


His ears twitch. “I can’t, Anne. This is me, I think.” 

  
  


A red fox. A tricksy creature, but a fox can survive anywhere, she’s been told - a fox is happiest in the wild but can live near villages and farms, can even survive in bustling cities as long as it’s not caught. There are, Anne thinks, stroking her fingers through her daemon’s rich red fur, much worse things for the shape of one’s soul to mean.

  
  


Her soul is beside her at Mechelen and then in France, the Regent’s court and that of Francois I. Her bright fox listens to Margaret of Austria and Marguerite d’Alencon and their daemons (surprisingly similar, both are falcons of different breeds) with attention as rapt as her own. Together they watch Louise of Savoy and her greyhound with the same curiosity, as Anne looks at those three women and thinks, this is what it is to be a woman of power, this is what it means to be a woman of intellect. 

  
  


But there is Queen Claude too, ugly and deformed but with the warmest eyes and the sweetest smile of anyone Anne has ever known, and her songbird daemon is as sleek and graceful as she is not, his feathers glossy and colorful in shades of blue and green and even purple when the light hits right. Queen Claude and her daemon find their strength in God, and in their role as consort to one king, child of his precessor and of a ruling duchess in her own right.

  
  


“Perhaps we can learn from all of them alike,” Nerian whispers in her ear, and Anne thinks he is right. 

  
  


Above all, she thinks, as they step onto the ship that will take them back to England, they have proven the truth of Nerian’s form. They can survive, whatever changes life may bring. 

  
  


<><><>

  
  


Jane’s Arian settles when they are older than any of their siblings. She thinks nothing of it even when Father is bewildered while Mother looks concerned and Edward frowns, when Tom and Dorothy mock her for it. Only Liz and Hal seem not to care, only they understand that Jane glories in the freedom of her unsettled soul. 

  
  


She knows well that she is the plainest of her sisters, but the mirror also tells her she has the prettiest eyes. A blue so dark they are more indigo than blue with their hints of purple, her eyes and her long blonde hair are Jane’s only real vanities. That her features are irregular, her form not quite ideally curved are things she cannot change, after all. 

  
  


And her daemon. He too is her vanity, in his freedom. 

  
  


But everyone must settle, eventually. For some people, the cause is less than fortunate, and so it is for Jane. 

  
  


The grounds of Wolf Hall are not extensive, but they are large enough to wander, and Jane has always liked a little spot by the river, where she can sit with her journal. The journal had been a gift from Edward, meant for Jane to write in and practice her letters, but she uses it as a sketchbook instead. 

  
  


(She can read, and enjoys it well enough, and she can write but she finds she has little of worth to say, so she would rather capture the world around her with sketches.)

  
  


There is an old, unused cottage near where she and Arian like to sit. Jane has never been there, but today she hears laughter, and then moans of pleasure unmistakable even to a country virgin like herself. Jane knows she should not investigate, it is not her concern, but - that was Catherine’s laugh. And she did not think Edward would bring his wife here. 

  
  


Arian is on her shoulder in one of his favorite forms, an ermine, as they peer in the window, to see - 

  
  


Catherine and Father.

  
  


Jane, sick to her stomach and sick at heart, turns and flees, her journal gripped tight in her hand so she doesn’t drop it. She doesn’t know if they saw her, prays they did not. She had known Catherine did not much like Edward, who could be cold and distant, she knew that Father and Mother were no more than polite to each other these days, but… but…

  
  


When Father, the very next day, orders that she is to go to court, and escorts her there himself, it is not really a surprise. She has been preparing for just such an eventuality (thankfully her court dresses are ready), but she was to go later this year, with her brothers. Jane can only think that her father must have seen her, and must want her gone. 

  
  


Still, when she arrives, she is comforted by Lady Maria Willoughby’s smile. “Why, your daemon is an ermine! How fitting that you should be in the Queen’s household, Mistress Jane, for ermines are an ornament of the highborn.”

  
  


In the maidens’ dorter that night, Jane pulls her blanket over her head, Arian curled on her chest. “Have you settled then, Ari?” she whispers. 

  
  


“I think so, Janey. It must have been the shock.” 

  
  


“Well. You’re beautiful, and as Lady Willoughby says, a most fitting shape for my future, yes?”

  
  


And, Jane reflects, it is good that her daemon proves she is meant to be here. Living at court will mean not going home often, if at all. She never thought she would want to leave Wolf Hall, but after what she’s seen, the very idea of going back turns her stomach. 

  
  


No. Much better to make her life here.  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's 1518, and everything is changing for Henry, while the ripple effects may send Jane back to where she least wants to be.

Henry names the boy Edward, and Delwyn names his daemon Rhiannon. Edward, when he had intended Henry, but the name sticks in his throat. Katherine died to give this boy life; Henry doesn’t dare, in that moment of looking at his son while his wife’s body grows cold in her bed, to name their son the same thing his elder brother had been named. Their little Henry, Duke of Cornwall, had been taken from them, and Henry fears to call down more grief by using the name again.

  
  


He gives orders for his son to be immediately moved to the nursery, away from this room that now means death as much as life. He must order someone to tell Margaret Pole, so that she can break the news to Mary. He must give orders for Katherine’s body to be prepared and for the celebrations to be muted in their grief. He knows he must have done these things, as he leaves the room and walks back to his own chambers in a daze, but he cannot recall it. He did not hear himself say the words, and he walks in a strange dizzy quiet that he thinks is only in his head, but he cannot be certain.

  
  


“We never knew his name,” Del says, and it’s the first thing to break the silence. He has the son and heir he so desperately needs, that he so longs for, but Katherine - Katherine didn’t - 

  
  


He should be relieved that his line is secure, even at such a cost. Henry expects to feel relief mingled with grief for his lost wife; he should feel both of those things, that would be the normal, expected - 

  
  


Why does he feel so cold? 

  
  


“We never -” 

  
  


“I heard you the first time!” Henry yells, and he pushes her off his lap, hard enough that she falls off the bed. But a leopard is only an oversized cat, and Delwyn lands easily on her feet, ears twitching and tail lashing. 

  
  


It was the tradition in Spain, Katherine told him, during a stolen moment while his father was on progress, in the days when they were both all but prisoners in their different ways. Dorado, Katherine’s lion daemon, had laid by their feet; Delwyn, unsettled still in those days, had taken the form of a tigress to settle beside him. 

  
  


Only the human-daemon pair themselves, and their parents, know the true name of one’s daemon, in Spain. For the world at large, each daemon has a nickname to go by.  _ “It is because Christians, Jews, and Muslims name their souls in different ways,” _ she’d explained,  _ “and when the Church converted people or when Christians fell to heresy, their daemons’ names meant they could never start anew. So we have taken to keeping the names of our souls safe.” _

  
  


_ “But surely, we’re to be married, can you not tell me?”  _

  
  


_ “Are we really to be married, or will our fathers’ disagreements prevent it?”  _

  
  


And she’d never told him. Henry hadn’t asked in that first year because he’d wanted Katherine to tell him without prompting. And he hadn’t asked, and hadn’t asked, until it became one more symbol of the growing distance between them.

  
  


“What do we do now?” Delwyn asks when Henry continues to be silent, laying her head on his thigh. This time, Henry does not shove her away, instead carding his fingers through the soft fur between her ears.

  
  


“I don’t know,” Henry says, because there is nothing else to say.

  
  


And he will never know her daemon’s name. No one will ever know her daemon’s true name, to write on a disk of gold and slip into her mouth, so that she will be buried with it. 

  
  


Worse, no one but him will know the wrongness of it. 

  
  


Henry’s daemon climbs back onto the bed and he presses his face to her fur. It’s not kinglike, but no one will see him like this. No one will know that he needs this comfort, how adrift he feels. Katherine has always been there, one of only two people who truly knew him, who knew him since he was a second son in Arthur’s shadow. 

  
  


He can still remember escorting her to London, her bright smile and girlish beauty, walking her up the aisle when she married Arthur, the sunlight colored by stained glass and how it fell on her hair when they’d been betrothed. Her steady blue gaze when they’d been crowned together. Her lion beside her through it all, his golden mane matching the name she had always called him. Tawny fur against his Del’s spots, the two of them a perfectly lovely pair.

  
  


She knew him, man and boy, as he knew her, princess and queen. Even without knowing her daemon’s true name, they knew each other. 

  
  


He has a son. A son who, God willing, will be King after him. Henry is afraid, he is already afraid - God took their first son, He took all their children but Mary, what if He takes this new baby Edward as He has taken Katherine?

  
  


“They’ll already be whispering that we’ll need to remarry, to father a Duke of York,” he says, and his voice shakes at the thought. “If - if the baby -” 

  
  


Del hisses at the very thought, her claws suddenly unsheathed. “I don’t  _ want  _ anyone else, and neither do you.”

  
  


No. They don’t. Dalliances have their charms, and are well enough in their way, but someone else to be Queen, when a King should choose a bride only among royalty, for alliances? No. Henry cannot imagine it, to marry a second time for pragmatism when he was fortunate enough to wed Katherine for love. So… So he and Del will have to guard Edward well, and find a husband for Mary worthy of siring backup heirs for England. They can do this. They must do this, for they owe Katherine that much. 

  
  


They cannot bury her with her soul’s true name, so they must guard the children she has left them. 

  
  


<><><>

  
  


She should be grieving for the Queen, for her good mistress, and Jane is, in fact, very sorry that Queen Katherine is dead. She is sorrier still for the little prince and princess, Edward and Mary, who will not remember their mother. 

  
  


(She is  _ not  _ that sorry for the King, though she does sympathize with the absent - and pregnant! - Bessie Blount, who never seemed entirely comfortable with the whole situation.)

  
  


“But what we’re really thinking is that we’re terrified to be sent home,” Arian says, interrupting her thoughts. He’s her daemon; he can’t quite  _ hear  _ what she thinks, but it’s close enough. They’re alone in the chapel right now. Everyone thinks they’re praying for the Queen’s soul, and the subterfuge makes Jane’s insides squirm, but she really does need to be alone with her daemon right now. 

  
  


“No one knows,” Jane whispers urgently. And it’s true; Edward is at court from time to time, after all, and so is Father. When Edward comes, he brings Catherine with him, and the two of them seem as politely cordial as they’ve ever been. Edward doesn’t know, and with hindsight Jane thinks that Mother must suspect only Father’s infidelity, not who precisely shares his bed.

  
  


Catherine doesn’t know that Jane knows. She’s always treated Jane pleasantly enough, and continues to do so. Jane relies on her shyness to hide her discomfort. Said shyness is fading steadily with time at court, but Catherine doesn’t know that either. Father, though… His cold grey eyes follow her whenever he attends court, and Jane knows she reads the warning in them, and in the beady glare of Father’s shrike daemon.

  
  


Luckily, none of her family know that court has made her bolder, and she is quick to act the shy mouse when one of them can see.

  
  


“How long can that last?” Arian retorts. “ _ We _ saw them; someone else will, eventually. And when that happens, if anyone realizes we knew, and said nothing…” 

  
  


“Well, who are we supposed to tell? Mother can’t do anything, and Edward would… Well, I don’t know what he could do either. Father is still head of the family, the only way to have any power over him would be for the scandal to break, and if  _ that  _ happens we’ll all be ruined!” Jane sighs, sitting back on her heels and watching how the light coming through the stained glass windows turns her hands and Arian’s fur multicolored. Really, it’s just an impossible situation, and the last thing Jane wants is to go home and go back into it!

  
  


She rubs her temples, trying to ward off a brewing headache. “We don’t have a choice,” she says grimly. “If we’re sent home, then… Then we will simply have to make the best of it. I don’t know just how, but we’ll think of something. There isn’t any other option, Arian, and you know it as well as I do.” 

  
  


He does know it, and Jane knows his silence is for that very reason. She doesn’t know what to do, and that frightens her. It frightens her a great deal. 

  
  


<><><>

  
  


It’s only three weeks after the funeral, May turned to June and the summer sun beating down as strongly as it ever does in England (Katherine and her Spanish ladies used to laugh whenever someone said the English sun was strong) when Henry gets word that Bessie is in labor. He and Delwyn make their way to the priory where Bessie has been in confinement, and it’s the strangest feeling. 

  
  


Once again, Henry waits for word of a woman bearing his child. Will that be the cause of another death? But this time, instead of sympathy, will Bessie’s father, still at court, look at him with accusation? Will his eyes say  _ You killed my daughter when you took her to your bed _ ?

  
  


Henry paces in the room where he waits, and for once Del is the still one, only her lashing tail evidence of her nerves. But she is frightened, and so is he. If God had seen fit to take Katherine as the price for a Prince of Wales, then surely this birth - Bessie is not his wife, their affair had been a sin - would have a cost to either mother or child. 

  
  


“Are you quite well, Your Majesty?” The quiet voice belongs to Cromwell, his new Secretary. Henry knows little about the man as yet, save that Wolsey names him both clever and discreet, and the daemon on his black-clad shoulder is a gyrfalcon, of course. Henry means to brush off the question, but he finds, somehow, that his throat is too tight to speak. 

  
  


Delwyn speaks for them - a rare thing, when not with someone close to them, Wolsey or Charles or Mary Rose, or… or Katherine. “We worry. The last time we waited for a child to be born, we gained a son, yes, but lost our wife. It’s not easy.” 

  
  


“No it isn’t.” This quiet agreement comes not from Cromwell but from the bird on his shoulder. She has a crisp, clear voice, Henry notes, watching her turn aside to briefly preen her human’s curly hair. “We lost our wife and daughters to fever last year, and our son - he’s at Cambridge, and every time someone says there’s sickness there, we worry.” 

  
  


Neither Henry nor Delwyn can say more, because one of the maids who had been attending Bessie appears in the doorway, her orange tabby daemon trotting at her heels. She curtsies deeply, but though her head remains bowed she says, “Your Majesty, Lady Blount is delivered of a strong son. She is resting now, but the midwife believes she will make a full recovery.”

  
  


A second son. A bastard, yes, but two sons within two months, a dead wife and a surviving mistress. Henry’s head spins, and the only thing he remembers clearly from the rest of that day is the small weight of his bastard son - Jasper, he decides suddenly, for  _ Henry  _ still chokes him, still seems like a death wish for any son of his who bears it. And so he names the boy for the uncle who always defended his own father, a name too Welsh for a Tudor prince but perfect for a Fitzroy Henry hopes will one day be as loyal a support to his brother. 

  
  


And for his daemon, Delwyn chooses Siani.

  
  


Edward Tudor and Jasper Fitzroy, Rhiannon and Siani. Two sons born within weeks of each other after years of Henry fearing he would never have a son. Henry stares up into the dark as he tries to sleep that night, and wonders. There is a message in this, he thinks, in two healthy sons, in Bessie living while Katherine did not. What is it he’s meant to know? 

  
  


(It’s not quite accurate to say all he remembers clearly is holding his son. He also remembers the quiet sympathy of a gyrfalcon daemon, the calm understanding in her human’s eyes.)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Four years later, Anne returns to England, Jane returns to court, and Henry has plans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Warning: There's some briefly mentioned domestic violence in the last scene.

“They say King Henry has resisted remarriage for four years already,” Anne says thoughtfully to Nerian as they pack their things, yet again. She’s quite used to packing up to move now. First, she’d been summoned from the service of the Regent to go to France, where the King’s sister Princess Mary was to wed old King Louis. She and Nerian had been left there, reassigned first to Queen Claude and then to Duchess Marguerite, after Francois had inherited the throne. 

  
  


But with relations between France and England souring, she’d been summoned home to Hever. Now, though, she’s summoned to the English court. The King’s elder sister Margaret, who is Queen Dowager of Scotland, had had to flee with her daughter, and King Henry’s decided to keep them in England as insurance against any moves by his nephew James V’s regents. 

  
  


Father says it never would have happened if Margaret wasn’t a widow, her scandalous second husband dead of a broken neck after a riding accident. But she is, and as the King’s elder sister her children are next in line for the throne. Since the King has so far refused to remarry, many suspect he wants his sister close, as a potential source of secondary heirs. And, in fact, he’s finally canceled the debt his younger sister Mary and her second husband, the Duke of Suffolk, owe for their elopement, to have them at court too. Both women need retinues appropriate to their rank, and so Anne is to join court. She doesn’t know if she will rejoin Mary’s ladies or become part of Margaret’s household, but it doesn’t really matter. Court is court, regardless of which princess one serves.

  
  


“He’ll take nephews over new sons?” Nerian asks. “Didn’t Mother say it was an excuse to have women at court again? He may not wish to remarry, but he grew tired of a court without ladies?” 

  
  


“I don’t care,” Anne says. “I’m just glad we won’t have to stay at Hever.” That had been her greatest concern, knowing that the household of little Princess Mary is already full. Not that life in a nursery palace would have been ideal  _ either _ , but better that than to stay buried alive in the country. 

  
  


Whitehall is provincial, when compared with Mechelen or the elegant chateaux of France, but Anne resolves not to think of such things. She is here now, she is back in England, and she will make the best of it. “At least we’re not going to end up in Ireland,” Nerian points out. Anne nods fervently. The plan for her to wed her Irish cousin James Butler had fallen through when he’d run off with another girl, the daughter of another Irish noble. 

  
  


Anne doesn’t think of herself as a romantic, not truly - but even aside from her own gratitude at not having to go to Ireland, she wishes the newlyweds well. She met James briefly at the Field of Cloth of Gold summit and he’d seemed a good enough sort. It was only that he was a country noble and she is not, making it very likely they’d turn the other’s life into a misery. So she hopes that he and his lady love are happy together in James’ beloved Irish wilds.

  
  


As it turns out, she’s been moved to the service of Queen Margaret. Anne is a little hurt - when she’d been with Queen Mary, the woman had seemed fond of her, had enlisted Anne’s help in little pranks and as a translator. Perhaps it’s that she knows Anne witnessed her secret assignations with Charles Brandon even before their elopement; Anne has noticed that none of the Queen of France’s ladies from her time in France are in her household now. Some, of course, have wed and no longer seek the court, but others, like her, are in the household of the Scottish queen instead. 

  
  


Anne decides this is well enough. She does not care for Charles Brandon, for before his romance with Queen Mary, he had dallied with her former mistress the Archduchess. Anne can still remember how the proud, confident Margaret had turned confused, skittish even, in the wake of Charles Brandon’s charm became forceful. And he’d had the backing of his king, too… 

  
  


It occurs to Anne to be uncomfortable, a little, when she remembers that. Still, she spent years in King Francis’ court, and he had even tried to seduce Queen Mary! Anyway, that was all so long ago, and both the King and Brandon are grown, settled men where the King at least had been half a boy, still, back then. 

  
  


Most of Queen Margaret’s women were once members of the late Queen Katherine’s household, including the young woman whose bed is next to Anne’s. Jane Seymour’s Arian is a snowy-white ermine, and he and Nerian seem to get along immediately, curling up on their respective humans’ pillows and chattering while Anne and Jane help each other dress as girls in the maiden’s quarters do. This, at least, is the same as it was in Mechelen or France. 

  
  


“I’d love to see those places,” Jane comments when Anne says as much. “I’ve been nowhere but court and back home at Wolf Hall.” She bites her lip then, but she doesn’t look away. Jane isn’t exactly pretty, but her eyes are a startling lovely blue, and the stubborn defiant pride in them now only enhances the shade. Anne understands why - the scandal at Wolf Hall had been whispered about at Hever, Sir John caught bedding his son Edward’s wife. George had been shocked a Seymour daughter even dared return to court. 

  
  


Anne smiles at her, and Nerian hops across to Jane’s bed to give Arian a friendly nudge. “Well, I can’t take you there, but I’ll tell you all about them if you’ll fill me in about court here. It’s been some time, I’d guess, but you still know more than me.” 

  
  


“You might want more respectable friends, Mistress Anne,” Jane says, voice rueful. 

  
  


“My best friend in France was a laundress,” Anne says with a laugh. “I am not going to start caring now. Besides, Neri likes your Arian and that’s all I need to know to make a friend, Mistress Jane. Shall we go?” 

  
  


<><><>

  
  


It’s a risk, to invite his half-uncle back to court. 

  
  


Henry knows this, thank you very much. He is not stupid. Owen Tudor was a miracle child, they said, born the year after Arthur was, to his grandmother Margaret Beaufort, by his father’s Uncle Jasper. 

  
  


Their story was something of a tragic romance, a thing that made Lady Margaret adored by some and mistrusted by others. There were those who spoke of witchcraft when they spoke of Henry’s maternal grandmother Elizabeth Woodville, and her cat daemon whose silvery fur made people whisper of enchantment and whose ability to travel far from his human made those who saw one without the other shudder in horror. 

  
  


But what to say of the thirteen-year-old girl, her daemon still unsettled when she bore her son, yet the day she left him in his uncle’s care her daemon settled… in exactly the shape of her brother-in-law’s? 

  
  


It is said that those whose daemons match perfectly are fated, and they may even divorce existing spouses in order to be together. Daemons’ shapes are ordained by God and so it remains, a thing even the Church must accept. And so, when Henry Tudor became Henry VII, he honored his stepfather Lord Stanley with a new title, with new lands… and a new wife, to make up for no longer being wed to the king’s mother, who was to marry the one man who could claim her even from a husband. 

  
  


(They say, still, that Margaret and her son were both at their best when their beloveds were alive, for though Henry Tudor and Elizabeth of York were not quite Matched, they were very close. Henry remembers this too, remembers his father turning cold, the harsh lines of his grandmother’s face.)

  
  


His grandmother had been barren with two successive husbands, and yet in the year after her first grandson was born, her second Tudor husband gave her a son. Owen has lived his life quietly in Wales, expressing his utter lack of interest in pressing his royal kinship. The last time Henry saw him was at his coronation, in fact, though they’ve written letters off and on through the years. He was in France with the army, but somehow Henry only ever spotted him at a distance. He doesn’t miss him, because of the letters and because Owen was raised in Arthur’s household, so they never did spend much time together. Still, Owen has sons with the Tudor name, and Henry’s sisters have daughters who do not have the Tudor name -  _ he  _ has a daughter, but he’s currently looking to find Mary a husband who will make her a queen - and given that Henry is trying to avoid remarrying, this is suddenly important.

  
  


If all else fails, he must at least preserve the Tudor name. Mary’s husband will be the sticking point there, he knows, but he can only work out so much while all the children are still so young.

  
  


“Some might look to his sons as Prince Edward’s heirs, Your Majesty,” Cromwell says when Henry brings this up. He prefers discussing his plans with Cromwell even over Wolsey or Brandon, because Cromwell is as clever as Wolsey yet feels more like a friend, as Brandon does. Often, Delwyn lets Ykenai perch on her back and preen her fur as they talk. It’s soothing. 

  
  


“Well, they’re not, but they are heirs,” Henry says matter-of-factly. “Owen has the same degree of claim that my father had - but my claim is better because of my mother. That’s why I need them here, Crum.” He doesn’t remember when he came up with that nickname, and he knows for a fact that anyone else who tries to use it regrets it, but Cromwell always seems amused by it, when it comes from his King.

  
  


“Owen never liked being semi-royal,” he explains. “He was always very clear about it, enough that Arthur used to complain and he never complained openly. Seemed to think it was unprincely. Father didn’t object like Arthur, he knew it was best that his brother didn’t cause any trouble, and I don’t know how my grandmother felt about it. I assume Owen raised his boys to think the same, but I’m proof that a man can raise his son with all his beliefs, but if their personalities don’t match, they won’t match. I want them here, so I can keep an eye on them. And I have only the one legitimate son, so I might need them. Better to have them close for whatever may come.”

  
  


“Will you keep little Lord Jasper in his brother’s household?” No one else would dare ask except for his sisters, but Cromwell’s voice is mild as he says it. 

  
  


“Yes. I think it best if they grow up as all but twins. It’s the best way to bind Jasper to Edward. I’ll make him a duke when he’s older, arrange a match with minor royalty if I can, he’ll never want for anything and Edward will have a brother he can rely on. My mother used to talk about how her mother relied so much on her siblings, and they were the ones who cleaved to their nephew King Edward, unlike Richard the traitor. I want to recreate that.” 

  
  


“As best we can,” Del chimes in from her cushions. “Better to rely on Tudor relatives, with the Plantagenet cousins always on the verge of causing trouble.” Del can’t purr, but she chuffs with pleasure as Ykenai runs her beak gently through the fur between Del’s ears. 

  
  


“And it will distract Wolsey from his marriage suggestions for a little while, hmm?” Ykenai asks after she lifts her head again. Henry has to laugh. 

  
  


“There is that,” he agrees, and his smile inexplicably widens when he sees the matching little smile on Cromwell’s face.

  
  


<><><>

  
  


Jane had actually  _ wept  _ with relief when the letter came inviting her back to court, to join the household of Queen Dowager Margaret. Arian had danced around the room and then Jane had scooped him up and spun about herself. 

  
  


They never want to go back.  

  
  


It had taken nearly two years before it all fell apart. Jane had been the only one home - Lizzie had just gotten married and Mother was visiting her with Dorothy in tow, Thomas was at court and Henry had escorted Mother. So it had been Jane with her father and Catherine and Edward, that awful, awful day when Edward had found them together.

  
  


After the shouting had finally stopped, Jane’s bedchamber had slammed open. Edward was inside, his fingers wrapped painfully hard round Jane’s upper arms before she could even react. “Tell me you didn’t know,” he’d demanded, voice rasping, eyes wild. He’d even shaken her a little. 

  
  


“No - I - what’s happening, Edward?” 

  
  


He’d believed her. Jane still doesn’t know why. She only thanks God for it - Father’s nose had been broken, and Catherine… Jane doesn’t know, though she’d heard her sister-in-law sobbing, the awful sound echoing through the corridors. Jane had been left with bruises in the shape of Edward’s fingers. Mother’s cold fury when she’d returned to find out the truth, Dorothy’s stunned horror. Thomas and Henry’s unusual silence, confused as to what to do.

  
  


And Edward’s sons. Or, perhaps, their father’s sons. Their own half-brothers. Family, regardless. Blameless children. She remembers their tears too. Edward’s sent them away, they’ll both become churchmen and never inherit a thing from him. Because he can’t be certain they’re his. 

  
  


Court isn’t ideal either, not now. Everyone knows - Thomas had warned her. They stare at her, and whisper behind their hands. Everyone, even the other maids in Queen Dowager Margaret’s household, who must know she can hear them. Even Jane’s mistress eyes her with a mocking sort of speculation. 

  
  


She shouldn’t say it’s  _ everyone _ . The King’s secretary, Master Cromwell, crosses her path sometimes in the gardens, and only ever greets her courteously, his daemon nodding an equally polite greeting without so much as a feather out of place. And then, of course, there is Anne. Anne and Nerian. 

  
  


“Don’t let them bother you, Jane. You are not responsible for what’s happened,” Anne tells her late at night, the covers pulled over their heads and Anne’s fingers curled around Jane’s, reassuring her. Nerian and Arian rest at their feet, noses touching.

  
  


“Tell that to them. As far as they’re concerned, if my father is so twisted, what can be expected of his children?” 

  
  


“My sister -” Anne stops for a moment, a harsh sigh the only sound from her. 

  
  


“You don’t have to -” 

  
  


“No. But I am. Mary was called The Great Prostitute in France. It was not her fault, or only partly so. Faced with a king’s desire, she didn’t know what to do but give in. And when he  _ ordered  _ her to other beds, she was afraid to defy him. They watched me too, and whispered, waiting to see me turn out the same way. But I didn’t. I won’t. And neither will you. They aren’t worth crushing yourself over.” 

  
  


_ They aren’t worth crushing yourself over.  _

  
  


Jane repeats that to herself whenever the whispers become too much. She murmurs it in Anne’s ear the day the Dowager French Queen comes to visit her sister and gives Anne a worryingly scathing look. It’s said that Queen Dowager Mary has a fierce dislike for the Boleyn sisters and a few others who were in her household in France, because they bore witness to her scandalous conduct with Charles Brandon.

  
  


Arian doesn’t rest on Jane’s shoulder as much anymore. Nerian is large for a fox, and Arian takes to riding on his back, his fur a bright streak of white against the rich red of Nerian’s coat. People whisper about that too, of course. It’s strange, they say, for the daemons of people not blood kin to be so close. If Anne or Jane were a man, it would be a scandal. As it is, it’s simply an oddity.

  
  


“I can make Ari stop,” Jane whispers one night. “If it bothers you. I know you say you don’t care, and that I shouldn’t, but, well. We don’t need to encourage it either, do we?” 

  
  


“No, I suppose we don’t. But Neri likes it, and so do I. I think so do you. Don’t you?” 

  
  


“Yes,” Jane has to admit. Arian says he rides on Nerian’s back because the fox is warm and comfortable. When he does, Jane feels the warmth herself, like someone hugging her close. Like  _ Anne  _ hugging her close, which is a thought that makes her cheeks flush for some reason she can’t truly understand. She’s just glad it’s dark, and Anne can’t see it.

  
  


“Well then. Why should we make them stop?” Anne’s voice is firm, daring anyone to tell her they shouldn’t do exactly as they want to do. “Now, neither of us want to be drowsy for the masque in the morning, do we?” 

  
  


“They gave you Perseverance for a good reason,” Jane quips, but then she closes her eyes and tries to sleep. At the foot of their bed, Nerian curls around Arian, nuzzling the top of his head, and suddenly sleeping is the easiest thing in the world. 

**Author's Note:**

> A note on Henry's daemon - the leopard was a badge (and in this case, the daemon) of Edward I. Leopards, in heraldry, are regal, but also changeable. You can never fully trust a leopard.


End file.
